In order to facilitate our understanding of the land
settlement programmes in the various South-East Asian countries,
it may be necessary to examine first how the different
implementing agencies approach the various factors usually
identified as important in affecting resettlement success. Seven
key factors are: (a) choosing the right place, (b) choosing the
right settlers, (c) physical preparation of the site prior to
settlers' arrival, (d) settler's capital, (e) the organization of
certain economic activities by groups of settlers, (f ) the size
of the holding, and (g) the condition of tenure (Lewis 1954,
3-11). These are only essential ingredients to the recipe. The
palatability of the final outcome depends on other factors, such
as the "gourmet's touch," proper mix, and proper
timing.

Choosing the Right Place

The right place is one where the site as well as the location
are suitable. As far as site is concerned, the physical aspects
must be suitable-the soil must be fertile, rainfall adequate,
drainage and environmental conditions acceptable. To enable all
these factors to be realized, the planners must have adequate
maps and information regarding the land available for
development.

In practically all the four South-East Asian countries
studied, it would seem that governments have desired a
resettlement programme because of the availability of unutilized
and unalienated areas under their control. Whereas land
development becomes a national policy and programme, the
essential administrative and bureaucratic machinery is not
adequately attuned to deal with the proper implementation of the
programme. Very few national governments, especially during the
initial stages of planning, have the requisite knowledge of the
best sites and locations for the projects. The planners are
usually handicapped because none of these countries has a
satisfactory inventory of its land resources. They have an idea
of where lands are available, but they are usually uncertain of
the quality, carrying capacity, and potential of such lands. The
potential natural productivity of tropical forest lands,
moreover, is still a subject of controversy. The great variety of
local physical conditions to be found within them, combined with
the inadequate number of detailed studies, would make futile any
sweeping assumptions. One would certainly need to consider the
soils, slopes, drainage, and temperature characteristics of a
given locality to avoid long-term wastage. The costs to determine
the quality and potential for such lands may be exorbitant, and
the planners may have the task of deciding on the viability and
long-term benefits of such studies. Technical advances during the
past few decades could be used to great advantage in determining
the quality of land before project implementation.

Since land is an important factor to any government, frequent
problems have arisen from interdepartmental rivalries and
jealousies. Usually, the questions of alienation, administration,
and exploitation are delegated to different government
departments and each tenaciously holds onto its control. The
situation is aggravated when land matters are vested in
provincial or state governments, which may not share the
objectives of the central government. In the case of the
Philippines, there were occasions when a resettlement scheme
could not be carried out on schedule by the resettlement agency
because the land was concurrently administered by a number of
other government agencies, each with its own plans for its
development (Bahrin 1973). There have also been cases in Malaysia
where land colonization has been made difficult due to the
conflicting interests of the state and federal governments
(Bahrin 1968). issues such as these have created confusion and
uncertainty among the settlers (Oey 1982, 42-44).

Given these conditions, it is no wonder that standard
operation procedures and adequate preparation in selecting
settlement sites have often to be put aside. It is common for the
reconnaissance groups in Indonesia and the Philippines to submit
reports based on casual visits and inadequate surveys. As a
consequence, plans are drawn up based on inaccurately surveyed
ground conditions. Two extreme examples of poor site selection in
Indonesia are "two tidal area projects in Kalimantan,
Marabahan and Balandean, which were opened in 1958-1959 and 1960
respectively. In both areas water and soil quality are major
problems. Without high quality irrigation and drainage systems,
such selected tidal areas are either inundated or have no
water.... The Marabahan project is located too far from the
Barito River so that neither can the swampy waters with a high
degree of acidity be drained into the Barito nor can the Barito's
water be used to irrigate the fields. Similar difficulties are
faced by the transmigrants in the Balandean Project" (Oey
1982).

Settler Selection

The objective of settler selection is to recruit those who can
best contribute to, and subsequently benefit from, the
development of the project. Unfortunately, in practice poor
selection of settlers is commonplace.

Despite having the common aim of raising income and standard
of living of the rural landless through land settlement, there
are variations in the details of the implementation of land
settlement programmes in individual countries. As indicated
earlier, in Indonesia and the Philippines, although improvements
in living standards are the ultimate object, the redistribution
of population is an equally important aim. With more of the
latter objective in mind, the Indonesian planners have divided
the country into two categories: the problem-source areas, where
people need to be removed for resettlement, and the
solution-recipient areas, where these people are resettled. In
Repelita II, priority source areas were determined, which
fulfilled the following criteria: (i) critical areas and those
which are to be rehabilitated; (ii) natural disaster prone areas;
(iii) areas where densities exceed 1,000 persons per square
kilometre; and (iv) areas which are to be inundated following the
construction of a dam. Repelita III contains similar
specifications of the general criteria for source areas and also
states that priority is to be given to kecamatan (sub-districts)
which are densely populated, relatively poor, and experiencing
environmental deterioration and acute problems of unemployment
(Oey 1982). Areas usually falling into the source category
include Java, Madura, Bali, and Lombok; all other areas,
especially South Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Irian Barat,
are included as the major receiving areas.

The criteria used in selecting individual transmigrants have
not changed very substantially during the past 50 years. The
transmigrant must meet the following conditions:

(i) he should be an Indonesian citizen;
(ii) he should not have been involved in the 30 September
1965 attempted communist coup or be a member of a prohibited
political party;
(iii) he should be a farmer or have other relevant skills;
(iv) be between 20 and 40 years old, with no member of his
family less than 6 months or more than 60 years old;
(v) be legally married and his wife not more than three
months pregnant;
(vi) be of good health and physically fit;
(vii) adhere to a religion;
(viii) be well behaved, have no criminal record, and never
transmigrated before;
(ix) he must go voluntarily; and
(x) be subject to regulations governing the implementation of
transmigration (Oey 1982).

There is ample evidence that these guidelines have not been
strictly adhered to. In the case of the Philippines, although the
policy on the intake of settlers is based on similar regional
considerations, priority being given to applicants from the
problem provinces in Central Luzon and the Bisayas, the actual
implementation is not as rigid as in Indonesia. Officially,
settlers must meet the following selection criteria:

(i) be qualified under the Public Land Law (CA141) to acquire
agricultural land through a homestead; (ii) be landless or the
holder of a farm too small to be economically viable; (iii) be
capable of cultivating the land personally or with the aid of his
family; (iv) be of good moral character; (v) a settler must not
have secured any homestead rights from any homesteader; and (vi)
he must be willing to work the land in accordance with the
conditions provided in the agricultural settlement (Land
Authority 1969).

Since the number of applicants at any one time exceeds the
number of available lots or the financial capacity of the
Department of Agrarian Reform to resettle, some order of priority
in the selection of settlers has to be instituted. Consequently,
in practice the DAR generally gives priority to those actually
occupying and personally cultivating the land in the project and
to qualified or deserving farmers in the province where the
settlement project is located. Thus? it may be observed that,
although one of the major objectives of resettlement in the
Philippines has long been the reduction of population pressure in
congested areas, in practice this has ceased to be a serious
consideration in the selection of settlers. There is no evidence
that applicants from declared or recognized congested areas are
given preference. In Malaysia and Thailand, where the
redistribution of population as such is not an important
objective in the land settlement strategy, the geographical or
"provincial" origins of applicants have not been given
especial consideration as no region has been spotlighted as a
source area of settlers. In fact. it seems that resettlement
efforts are concentrated rather within the state boundaries. For
example, some of the Thai projects, such as the hill tribe
resettlement schemes, are established in the locality or province
in which the settlers are recruited. Similarly, the resettlement
projects implemented by the state governments in Malaysia are
intended to benefit only the people in the state concerned. Even
in many of the FELDA schemes, birthplace is featured in the
agreement between the authority and the various state
governments. This is done because under the Malaysian federal
system, a state government exercises control over land matters,
and it is agreed that not less than 50 per cent of the settlers
in any scheme shall be comprised of the residents of the state in
which the scheme is located. In schemes in states such as Negri
Sembilan, Malacca, Kedah, and Perak, where pressure on the land
is greater, nearly all the settlers are recruited from within the
state.

A policy common to all South-East Asian governments, excepting
Thailand, is the priority given to applicants who have large
families. The idea seems reasonable, since more people can thus
be removed from overcrowded areas. On closer examination,
however, problems and difficulties are revealed. First and
foremost, although Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia
generally are not in favour of considering applicants over 45
years of age, invariably applicants who have large families are
already in their late 30s or early 40s. They are often found to
be less energetic and more difficult to supervise than the
younger settlers. Second, in many of these families a large
proportion of the children are of school age and, as the majority
of the schemes are newly opened, facilities for education in
general and secondary education in particular are limited, and it
is inevitable that the education of the settlers' children will
be disrupted.

In recent years there seems to be an implied preference for
smaller families. In Malaysia, FELDA has reduced the maximum age
limit for a settler from 45 years to 35 years, and at the same
time no extra incentive point is awarded to any settler with more
than five children. In Indonesia, an indirect limitation has been
introduced whereby rations are supplied to each family during the
first 12 months (18 months for tidal areas) in the project
calculated on the basis of a maximum of five members, husband,
wife, and three children.

Preparing the Site

There seems to be a great amount of debate regarding the
amount of site preparation to be done by the government and the
settlers respectively. The practice in South-East Asian countries
differs widely, consistent with the stand taken in the debate.
Considerations regarding this factor range from leaving the work
of land preparation entirely to the settlers themselves, to
having the government undertake completely the clearing and
developing of the land, as in the case of the FELDA projects; the
question revolves round the availability of funds. Thus, in cases
where funds allocated for resettlement are small and need to be
utilized to resettle as many people as possible, site preparation
has largely been left to the settlers. The practice seems to vary
widely, not only amongst countries but also between projects of
the same country.

Turning to Indonesia, ground preparation has been extremely
unsatisfactory in the past, for sites were never prepared prior
to allocation to the settlers; the settlers had to build their
own houses, clear their land, and even construct irrigation
channels. After 1973, the policy was modified somewhat such that
the low-lying areas were made ready prior to the arrival of the
settlers, and besides the construction of houses and an
infrastructure, 2 ha of land were cleared for each family before
emplacement. Implementation of the modified policy has been far
from satisfactory (Guinness 1977, 53).

Similar observations can be made for resettlement projects in
Thailand, the Philippines, and even in the Kelantan State
schemes, where a "self-help" concept was adopted but
has now been abandoned. It may be noted here that in the newly
created Nuclear Estate Smallholder Programme, the private sector
has been asked to develop the land and provide the essential
infrastructure, to be paid for by the Transmigration Department
(Habir 1984).

In the FELDA projects in Malaysia, on the other hand, settlers
are not brought in until the jungle has been cleared and the
fields planted, including several months' maintenance, the houses
completed, and other social facilities such as schools, community
and health centres have been prepared. No doubt due to its record
of better performance, implementing agencies from neighbouring
countries tend, more and more, to adopt the FELDA system. Lewis
(1954) observed earlier that the advantage of this system is that
it makes the settlement more attractive and thus easier to get
and hold settlers. Needless to say, if the settler has to do
these things for himself after he arrives, it will be some time
before he can get down to the business of farming, and he may
have to spend two or three years on the land before he gets a
self-sufficient crop (Lewis 1954). Failure to begin their
agricultural work immediately because of the time required for
site preparation has forced the settlement agencies in the
Philippines and Indonesia to extend the subsidy period and
consequently prolong the settlement process (Bahrin 1973). In
brief, to attract and retain settlers, the projects must appear
promising as a place of work and residence. New rural settlement
schemes must be able to compete with other potential
destinations. More often than not, this is more easily said than
done, considering the many constraints that implementing agencies
face.

Group Economic Activity

The issue here is how much of the economic activity of the
settlers is to be left to individuals and how much is to be
organized or guided in groups. Experience in SouthEast Asia
appears to be varied, ranging from complete freedom of the
individual settler to do whatever he likes to strict control of
activities. Those associated with the former include the pre-1973
transmigration schemes in Indonesia and the pre-1975 Kelantan
State Land Development projects in Malaysia; in these cases, only
the land was provided, leaving the bulk of the physical
development of it to the settlers. The main consideration
regarding the choice is basically the availability of funds,
which is sometimes cloaked in the need of creating
"self-reliant" communities in these new settlements. In
the FELDA projects and in some of the newer projects in Thailand
and the Philippines, it has become necessary for work to be done
collectively and under closer supervision.

The question of greater or lesser group work will depend to a
large extent on the objective and the nature of the project
itself. If the people are settled on individual family units with
subsistence as the objective, then the potential for group work
is reduced. In this case, resettlement becomes an end in itself
and not a means to overall economic advancement (Bahrin 1981,
131-142). If the crops are grown for sale, especially in the
international market where quality has to be maintained, and if
the family-size farm is to be economically viable, some central
agency must organize all matters which are best done on a large
scale, for example, mechanical operations, irrigation, research
and technical advice, and processing, storing, and marketing of
the crops. Settlement projects in South-East Asia with
co-operative and centralized control appear to be more successful
than those where farmers are left to themselves and supervision
is lacking.

Size of Holding

Since land settlement schemes are invariably agricultural
projects, the size of the lot must be planned in accordance with
the main aims and objectives of the programme. Two principles
commonly adopted in determining the farm size are: (i) the farm
must be large enough to provide a living for the family, and (ii)
it must not be more than what the settler and his family can
cultivate (Bahrin 1981).

It is not surprising that, even with the strictest adherence
to the above principles, allocated farm sizes vary from country
to country and even within the same country, which may be due to
the existence of too many agencies responsible for land
settlement (Suthiporn and Worwate 1980, 128-131).

In Thailand, the size of holding allocated per settler varies
from place to place and from one type of project to another. In
the case of self-help schemes and land cooperatives, by law
holdings shall not exceed 8 ha. In practice, however, the holding
size allocated varies between 0.5 and 4.0 ha per family (Perera
1979, 216).

In the Malaysian and Philippine settlement programmer, settler
holdings are governed by income and employment factors. The
implementation, however, seems to vary. In the case of FELDA,
changes in allotment have been determined by changes in produce
prices and consequently settler income. Until recently, settlers
in oil palm schemes have been allocated holdings of 5 ha.
Presently, although the 4-ha holding has become the standard,
with depleting land resources, the government is now considering
a reduction to its pre-1960 size of 3.2 ha in order to cope with
the problem of landlessness. This may be a retrogressive move,
considering the need to make new schemes competitive in
attracting and retaining settlers. In the face of declining
commodity prices and improved standards of living in urban
centres, the size of holding, as the sole source of settler
income, needs to be increased, not reduced. In the Philippines,
the average farm lot size is markedly variable-from an average of
4.17 ha in Santo Tomas, where the ground is relatively flat and
fertile, to 11.09 ha in Kabankalan, where the soil is lacking in
fertility.

In Indonesia, each transmigrant-like his predecessor in the
latter part of the Dutch resettlement programme-is normally given
2 ha of land. Despite the economic and social changes of the past
four decades, no serious effort has been made to review the
suitability of this allocation. The 2 ha allocation is
apportioned into a 0.25 ha house lot, a 0.75 ha dry-crop parcel,
and a 1 ha wet-rice paddy. During the past 10 years, the
allocation of land has been increased to 3-5 ha. It must be
recognized that the distinction between wet and dry land is often
obscure, for lack of irrigation facilities on paddy land in some
projects has forced the settlers to plant dry crops, and, in
other cases, land allocated as dry-crop land has been converted
to rain-fed paddy. It has been observed that a fair proportion of
settlers have been unable to live off the allocated land and have
been forced to vacate the settlement; another high proportion was
compelled to seek whatever employment was available off the farms
(Perera 1979, 135).

Tenure

Like their counterparts elsewhere, the South-East Asian
settlers are initially attracted to join projects because of the
promise of land ownership. Most of the settlers are impatient to
get titles to their land, and those titles must be tied to as few
conditions as possible. In the majority of cases, there have been
delays in the issuing of these titles. Some of the delays are due
to the inability of the settlers to repay their loans. Because it
costs the government a large sum of money to resettle him and his
family, the settler is usually required to repay either part or
the total expenditure of his settlement.

The delays in issuing titles, besides the inability of
settling loan repayments, can be due to bureaucratic tardiness.
In most of the countries in the region, the resettlement agency
concerned is not authorized to issue land titles, even to those
who have fully repaid their loans. For example, in Thailand, as
of 1982 only 2 out of 58 projects had received full land title
deeds, and the settlements had been transferred from the care of
the department to the normal administration by the local
authorities (Uhlig 1984, 35). In some instances, as evidenced in
the Philippines and Indonesia, this delay could be caused by the
existence of customary claims to the legal ownership of the land.
In some cases in Indonesia, the government has not always been
able to compensate in a way which was regarded as equitable by
the locals (e.g. in Sitiung), or the indigenous people may come
along after the resettlement community is established and assert
ownership in the interest of obtaining compensation (Davis 1971,
21). In Malaysia close co-operation between FELDA and the various
local land offices has ensured that titles are issued as soon as
the repayments are completed. Any delay has to be avoided because
it may create discontent among the settlers and consequently
discourage others from participating in such programmer.

Within the context of population redistribution, it would be
worthwhile to examine the number of people emplaced as a result
of resettlement programmes in the region. One is forewarned that
the data used can be misleading due to improper record keeping.

From the beginning, the Indonesian colonization and
transmigration programmes have consistently failed to resettle
the planned number of people. During the Dutch colonial period,
only some 190,000 persons were moved from Java to the outer
islands (MacAndrews 1978). There was a complete halt in the
resettlement programme implementation between 1941 and 1950. The
post-independence programme has been characterized by
unsatisfactory settler emplacement due to over-ambitious plans
(see table 1).

TABLE 1. Intake of transmigrants, Indonesia, 1950-1979

Period

Number (Persons)

Annual average

1951-55

111,595

22,319

1956-60

134,371

26,874

1961-65

141,844

28,369

1966 69

27,712

6,928

1970-74

182,404

36,481

1975-79

456,987

91,397

During the early years of independence, when agencies were
eager to accomplish things, the transmigration programme was
envisaged to reduce Java's population from 54 million to 31
million in 35 years. This was to be achieved by moving out 1
million people per year during the first 5 years, 2 million per
year during the second 5 years, and finally 7 million annually in
the last 5 years of the plan. The achievement as of the 1965 coup
was a mere 387,810-a far cry from the intended plan. The emphasis
on large numbers continued after 1965. During the initial period
of the Suharto government' the plan was to resettle 2 million
people per year. Only an average of 8,000 annually was resettled
between 1966 and 1969. During Repelita I (1969-1974), the target
was more realistic in relation to government capacity: a total of
182,414 persons were resettled relative to the target of 190,705
(Guinness 1977, 8-9). The large number game reappeared in
Repelita II (1974-1979), when an average annual resettlement of
50,000 families was envisaged. When the performance during the
first 2 years was below expectations, the annual targets for the
remaining period of Repelita II were consequently revised. The
percentage realized of the original target was a mere 22.5 per
cent, as compared to 67.8 per cent of the revised target for the
whole of Repelita II. The third plan, Repelita 111 (19791984),
set its aims even higher, with a target of 500,000 families, or
2.5 million people (see table 2).

Within a year of its adoption, the oil-price increase seemed
to make such an ambitious programme financially feasible. Judged
merely by the number of people moved from Java, Bali, and Lombok,
the transmigration programme has achieved remarkable results in
the past 10 years. However, the target of 500,000 families has,
once again, proved over-ambitious.

TABLE 2. Transmigration goals for Repelita III

Fiscal year

Number of families

1979-80

50,000

1980-81

75,000

1981-82

100,000

1982-83

125,000

1983-84

150,000

Total

500 000

It must be noted that official statistics which show it to
have been reached include a substantial number of spontaneous
migrants. Be that as it may, to have managed the movement, as
well as the settlement, even of 50-60,000 families a year in the
often extremely difficult conditions of the Indonesian
archipelago represents a notable organizational feat (Arndt
1984). The target under Repelita IV (1984-1989) has been doubled,
to one million families during the period. Arndt and Sundrum
(1977, 85) suggest that transferring over a million persons per
year could be attainable if the programme were to place more
emphasis on voluntary migration and wage employment on public
works projects. It is, nevertheless, pertinent to note that
between 1932 and 1974, the programme had saved Java from a
population increase of some 990,000 (Speare [1978], quoting
official sources, indicates that some 810,000 persons were
resettled between 1905 and 1975) compared to its total increase
of 39 million during that period (Jones 1978,98).

The resettlement achievements in the Philippines are similar
to those observed in Indonesia. Since its inception in 1939 until
1978, a total of 49,796 families had been placed in settlement
projects. The pattern of intake appears to vary from time to
time, depending on the seriousness and concern of the
implementing agencies and officers. The largest emplacement of
settlers, 60 per cent of the total between 1939 and 1978,
occurred during the period 1955-1963, when NARRA was entrusted
with the task of resettlement. Despite the success of NARRA
relative to its successors, its achievement was still below the
planned total of 5,000 settlers per annum. In some years, the
number of actual transmigrants was disappointingly low. It has
been observed that a majority of the registered settlers were
either pioneers or those who resided not too far from the schemes
(Ramos 1978,134). Consequently, the word "resettled"
should not be used as a blanket term. Of the 34,025 families for
which data are available, only 9,415, or 27.7 per cent, were
actually moved in by the government. The remaining 24,610
families were either occupants of the area before its
proclamation as a resettlement reservation or settlers who went
to the resettlement project at their own expense, or they were
settlers within the area or surrounding area who were
subsequently absorbed. It must, however, be appreciated that
resettlement work in the Philippines, especially in Mindanao, has
been made very difficult during the past 13 years as a
consequence of the problems arising from the armed conflicts
between the security forces and the MNLF (Moro National
Liberation Front) and NPA (New People's Army) dissidents
(Racamora and Panganiban 1975, 169).

Despite the late start in resettling, the various land
development agencies in Malaysia have been able to emplace more
settlers in a shorter period than the equivalent agencies in the
Philippines. For example, between 1957 and 1975, a total of
59,137 settler families had been admitted into the various
government sponsored projects in Peninsular Malaysia (see table
3). It should be mentioned that there are also state schemes in
Sabah and Sarawak that have not been taken into consideration
because of the different problems that they face. The
implementing agencies in those two states are finding
difficulties in getting people to settle in their projects. It
must also be noted that the youth schemes do not admit families
but only unmarried youths, both males and females. The opening of
new youth schemes has now been discontinued.

TABLE 3. Scheme resettlements, Peninsular Malaysia,
1957-1975

Scheme

Number

FELDA

34,200 (families)

State schemes

17,450 (families)

Youth schemes

7,487 (individuals)

Since 1975, the intake of settlers into FELDA schemes has been
tremendously increased. During the first four years of the Third
Malaysia Plan (1975-1980), FELDA took in 18,506 families. The
overall settler intake since 1957, however, is similar to that
achieved by Indonesia and by the Philippines, in that emplacement
lags behind projected targets. By July 1984, FELDA had
successfully developed 367 schemes covering 654,000 ha and
resettling some 84,265 families in 227 schemes; the remaining 140
schemes were without settlers. It can thus be observed that
during the past five years, FELDA has been able to resettle as
many settlers as it did during its entire initial 18 years. There
are adequate indications to show that settler emplacement will
increase in the future.

The various government programmes in Thailand have been able
to record a far larger number of families being placed in
resettlement projects compared with either the Philippines or
Malaysia. By 1979, about 240,000 families had been settled.
Recipients had been allotted some 800,000 ha in a settlement area
totalling 2 million ha, scattered in 200-odd projects around the
country (see table 4) (Suthiporn 1982, 108). As elsewhere in the
region, however, the achievements fall short of the targets, and
up-todate data on the actual number who are still resident in the
projects are not available. There are many instances where
official records of settlers could not be physically
substantiated due to settlers having already left the schemes.

TABLE 4. Land allocation and settler intake in major
settlement programmes in Thailand (as of 30 September 1979)

Programme

Area (ha)

Settlers (families)

Self-help

288,025

103,143

Land co-operative

280,195

56,393

Land reform

5,979

1,869

Land allocation

91,059

60,674

War veteran

4,386

1,046

Forest village

-

1,853

Land development

23,372

12,390

Forest community development

7,521

3,472

Total

700.537

240,840

Source: Suthiporn 1982

The popular reasons, such as reluctance of farmers to move to
new areas and the usual official claims of shortage of funds
allocated to such programmer, need to be examined closely and
established as facts. There are many cases when targets are not
met because the implementing agencies could not get the job done
due to a lack of co-ordination and co-operation from associated
departments and also a shortage of technical manpower. The
failure to achieve targets appears not to arise wholly from a
lack of funds. In Indonesia, for example, the resettlement
programme's budget was increased from 800 million rupiahs in 1970
to 6,652 million in 1974 and 14,936 million in 1976. It was
estimated, however, that during the first year of Repelita II, 24
per cent of the allocated budget was not spent. This portion rose
to 34 per cent in the second year and 96 per cent in the third
year (Beddoes 1977, 11).

Whatever the real reasons or the official excuses for the
smallness in the number of people resettled by the various
governments in South-East Asia, it has, however, often been
observed, especially in Indonesia and the Philippines, that the
number of people who have migrated to the frontier areas on their
own is quite substantial. This phenomenon could be assumed to be
caused either by the seriousness of the socioeconomic problems of
the settlers or by the mere tardiness of the implementing
agencies in resettling potential migrants, or both.

In view of this and within the context of governments'
financial and manpower constraints, the occurrence of spontaneous
migrations and government sponsored land development programmer
could be integrated so that the maximum number of people could
benefit from the opening and development of the frontier areas.
For example, planned and sponsored settlement schemes could be
used as a core and a magnet to attract spontaneous migrants that
may then be assisted in getting land, social services, and
employment. In short, the number of people that can be resettled
satisfactorily could be increased (Uhlig 1984, 105-110).